FEBRUARY 4, 1865:
In an editorial entitled
“Rebellion” the Richmond Daily Dispatch justifies
the Civil War as “no rebellion at all” and quotes the British Foreign Minister
in regard to the subject. Despite the Foreign Office’s supposed “endorsement” of
the South, the United Kingdom has long since shrugged off the idea of
recognizing the Confederacy. Graveyard whistling, the Editorial Staff tries to
paint a rosier picture, raising the tired old argument of States’ Rights. The
past-tense tone of the piece sounds like a post-mortem on The Cause. Their
ruminations read in part:
Even Lord John Russell
confesses his inability to see any cause for the excessive indignation
manifested in the North at the crime of "rebellion." England, he
observes, rebelled against Charles I [and] rebelled against James II . . . Earl Russell says: ‘"The mere fact of
rebellion is not, in my eyes, a crime of so deep a dye that we must renounce
all fellowship and communion and relationship with those who have been guilty
of it . . . “
What adds to the audacity of this outcry, is the simple fact
that there has been no rebellion at all, unless it be that of the Black
Republican party against the American Constitution. There must be allegiance to
a government acknowledged before resistance of its authority becomes rebellion.
The States never owed any such allegiance to their agency at Washington. They
were the sovereigns, to whom, and to whom alone, the supreme allegiance of
their respective inhabitants was due.
